Spencer and I are in a fight. We are having a battle of wills and I am unsure who will actually win this one. He has been taking off when we let him out to do his business. So, my brilliant solution is to put the leash on him. Being it is winter, and morning, I stand in the doorway and let him go as far as the leash will allow. I think this is a wonderful compromise. Spencer thinks this is crap.
He wakes me up about 5am to be let out. This is a relatively new pattern. He is an old man now, so it's pretty common for old men to have to pee at 5am. But most old men do not wake me up to do so. He doesn't bark, which I may find startling, he whines. Continuously and quietly. It is so annoying I can't do anything except cave to his wishes. It's like he has some sort of sonic whine that only I can hear, no one else seems to hear or care or get as frantically annoyed as I do when he whines. I suppose that is because of our "bond". Or it could be that other people in this house think if they ignore his whine, they don't have to walk him.
Needless to say this is not a happy way to start my day. I jump out of bed swearing my head off because of the whine, follow him downstairs (he has to go first otherwise he knocks me down the stairs) and give him the Evil Eye as I see how much garbage he has spread over the kitchen floor. And he just looks at me and whines. Makes my eyeballs vibrate, not a fun feeling.
So, after a week of being dragged around in the front yard in my PJ's at 5am, once even being pushed into a snowbank, I decide that he doesn't need to go farther than the length of the leash. Previously, I would let Emma and Spencer out the front door and Emma being the perfect little angel that she is, would stay right in my front yard, do her thing and hustle in when I called her. Spencer, the turd, would immediately disappear. And there would go at least 20 minutes trying to find him. Many times he turns up in the backyard, although occasionally he comes trotting home from one end of the block or the other. Typical. He doesn't care that it's 50 degrees below zero with whipping winds and blinding snow. Jerk.
Today, I hear the whine, I react typically and hook him to the leash. Not that he could stand still long enough for me to get him connected. He knocked over the iron shovel by the front door, tripped over the 3 sets of boots, and ran head first into the door as I was opening it. Sometimes he forgets which side of the door opens and stands at the wrong side and plows into it as I open it. Which is very amusing but not at 5am. At 5am it is just stupid.
He goes tearing out the door, almost ripping my arm off . But I was ready. I had braced myself, holding onto the door frame with my foot wrapped around the chair next to the door. Spencer looked back at me as if I had lost my mind and tried again to take off. I told him, in no uncertain terms, that he has to pee where he is or not pee at all. We were done with the morning playtime in the snow. Playtime will only happen after 11am. He was dumbfounded. He has never had boundaries before. He didn't know what to do. But he decided quite quickly how he was going to handle this change of circumstance. He would stand stock still and not pee.
So, he stood outside as I stood inside and the war began. He would have stood there till the sun came up, but I was freezing. In we come. And within 5 minutes, he is whining again. Same routine, down the stairs, knock stuff over, confusion with the door, out and standing.....no pee. In we come. This goes on 4 more times. Unbelievable. No pee.
Now, it had crossed my mind that he may have a prostrate problem. I mean, I see the commercials on TV. Have trouble "going"...and all that. So, I do a little experiment. I let him out no leash. He pees no problem, then disappears up the block. 20 minutes later, I find him in the neighbor's backyard eating yellow snow. So, he has no health issues, it's not his prostate as he wanted me to believe. I'm not convinced that he has a prostate. He was fixed years ago. He is old and fat and despite having his balls removed he still seems to have a set. This is nothing more than a battle of wills.
It's going to be a long winter. I intend to invest in a garbage can lock. Between no garbage treats and peeing while on a leash, Spence just may run away from home. Be prepared, if you see an old, overweight, pouty faced mutt lumbering up your driveway, know that he is looking for total freedom and will accept nothing less. Why? Because he is an ass.No one believes me. They look into his sweet face and think I just make this crap up. Little do they know.....
A testament to my love for my dog, or just a measure of my dysfunction....whatever. He's a piece of work, sometimes a piece of shit and always loved.
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